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Hello.

I am nearing the completion of my degree (business) and have finally got an opportunity to write about videogames after all this time. I have a 2500 word essay to write about the effects of contemporary globalisation issues on a particular industry, sector, or organisation of my choice.

Key issues to consider would include:
• Emergence of new economic powers
• Democracy & corporate governance
• Consumerism
• Share and spread of knowledge, skills and expertise
• Technological advancements
• Economic divides between nation states / winners and losers
• Impact on the economy
• Impact on the workforce
• Changes in social trends, acceptance and norms
• Environmental issues
• Security factors

So without fear of sparking an interesting discussion, what do you believe the key influencing factors to be over the previous 10-50 years that have shaped the videogames industry? I want to talk about things such as technological advancements (as a result of globally shared knowledge and skills) allowing the internet to grow to such a level, online games becoming increasingly ‘powerful’ having their own economy that overlaps with real economy (rl sales etc), problems such as school truancy and poor work attendance as a result of addiction, perhaps a decline in traditional social activity. Events like assaults/murders resulting from crazy psychos getting a sword stolen in a game, Chinese gold farmers/people who earn an entire living playing games (not you nox, developing/coding doesn’t count, but could perhaps be worked in when I talk about work options for the otherwise incapable?)

Basically after talking about the boring stuff, as in lowered trade barriers, developing economies as a new power (hi china), spread of wealth, knowledge, skills and technology I want to talk about the development of an entirely new community with similar characteristics to a real country perhaps, but existing solely on the intarweb. I want to discuss the growth of gaming to its current status, and will obviously have to discuss other areas of the internet and whatnot, but would like to focus primarily on online gaming/communities. I’ll probably have to add to this to make it more coherent but you get my drift, be interesting to see what your thoughts are and what the future may hold.

Something you might want to explore is the correlation between the loss of morality and the gain of porn, violence and illegal activities in the computer industry.

Lazy bastard write your own essay.

fu, im just scouting for ideas on the most interesting subjects!

Fatalist wrote:fu, im just scouting for ideas on the most interesting subjects!

Villa wrote:porn

EA GAMEZ = TERRORISTS

I would have expected better from you christopher.

dragon empires was probably the turning point in mmo VIDEO GAMING.

As much as it pains me, WoW is a good one to focus on when it comes to non-existant economies, It has a national income higher than 90% of the world and doesn't exist. It's pretty old hat, but only to use internet heroes.

I would definatly look at the psychology involved, the relationships formed via playing a game together, just look at us bum boys for a prime example.

A very good angle is the impact it has on the disabled, while I'm not completely dibilitated, there were periods of my illness where I could barely leave bed, but I could still talk to friends, do activities together and generally have a pseudo-life that would otherwise have consisted of watching TV and pissing in a bottle.
When you look at ME sufferers and the suicide rate, I defo think that could have been reduced had the creative, entertaining and social outlet that games provide instead of sitting at home complaining about being tired.

but then in the same breath it's also a very big possibility that having that alternate method of "having a life" could cause people to make themselves physically ill because of neglect and addiction or be a very good reason for never making a good effort at getting better again and resigning to being ill forever.

You could also look at the evolution of gaming, back in the 80s games were made for everyone, it wasn't uncommon for old grannies to play Pacman and space invaders for example, but slowly it became orientated towards a very specific sub-set and age group, as we gamers have gotten older so has the target audience. It's also come full circle in that many analysts (and myself) predict casual gaming to be the future for PC gaming, which is significantly aimed at the bored housewife and old granny.

sry 4 making real points.
You could talk about how you got aids online lololol

Nice topic, I got to do an essay on Blizzard a few years back (Also doing a Business degree, although currently marketing orientated).

You've mentioned ALOT of topics for a 2500 word essay, however I guess, depending on detail and scope, its doable.

Something I did an essay on last semester was Digital Distribution, I think its a good area to look at, espically Steam and XBL Arcade, oh and Virtual Console. It's just such a good way to cut out "the middle man", im unsure exactly how much extra profit it makes the company, Nox might have an idea, but I can only assume its a tidy extra.

As stated above, you gotta mention WoW, its just insane how one game can have such an overall impression on the industry, I swear a new MMO is announced every week because of it.

Last thing you can look at, and possibly the most recent of events, has to be Nintendo, its a key example of targeting a different market segment and totally blowing it open, developers and companies have always talked about the casual gamer, but until very recently has it been anything more than a niche market, now its freaking huge. Nox is even an example with his flash games.

All I can really think of, just in from work, starving.

cheers @ nox and angus.

@ angus, I don't intend to cover all the topics, but as many as possible. also remember the essay is more about globalisation and its effect on an industry rather than just the industry itself, so i won't be going into massive depth on things internet/gaming related.

Where is my thanks ?

thx